


Everyone Must Breathe

by ArabellaStrange



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, I couldn't help myself, M/M, Nighttime, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 10:42:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArabellaStrange/pseuds/ArabellaStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short exchange of breaths in the middle of the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone Must Breathe

‘Well,’ chokes John, his lungs still screaming to pump at twice their normal rate, ‘I won’t be forgetting _that_ in a hurry.’

Sherlock flops sideways onto his side of the bed, grabbing a hand-towel in the darkness and cleaning them both, limbs ganglier than usual as his muscles succumb to pliant hormones. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, John, you could have lasted twice that long if you weren’t so tired.’

John huffs in half-incredulous shock (though it is so difficult to care as Sherlock grates the cloth across his groin and a last ripple of _oh_ sings across his skin). ‘I forget I’m with the self-crowned _king_ of stamina.’ He smirks and closes his eyes.

‘Exactly,’ rumbles Sherlock, rolling over petulantly onto his stomach and thrusting an arm under his pillow. ‘Your very _convenient_ memory, Doctor Watson.’

Something in Sherlock’s voice makes John open his eyes, peering over at the now unmoving detective. Apart from a mussed swath of dark curls, Sherlock rivals his pillow for paleness, especially in the monochrome of streetlight. Wiry tendons, stern ribs, waves of muscle, all surge and fall with each breath along the crest of his spine, a seamless seam, and John finds himself unable to stop staring.

Unmoving, but not asleep – John knows that much.

‘Sherlock, you can’t…’ He swallows the end of his own sentence, then swallows again. Sherlock doesn’t move. ‘Sherlock,’ he begins again, lowering the volume and tone of his voice, ‘I don’t forget this between – about us, what we… do–’ Sherlock scoffs minutely into his pillow. John breathes and shifts closer, so his next words raise the hairs on Sherlock’s forearm and elbow. ‘I don’t forget who I’m with – not just because you don’t let me, you git – you’re the most brilliant, big’ (he kisses Sherlock’s elbow) ‘-hearted’ (Sherlock scoffs again, but warmly, and a tiny twitch of a smile curves his mouth) ‘arrogant bastard I’ve ever, well, come across’ (Sherlock rolls his eyes behind his eyelids and John grins openly) ‘and I…’ 

John can’t help but trace a faint line, grazing skin from Sherlock’s elbow, round the soft, taut skin of his armpit, down across his ribcage until he rests his thumb at Sherlock’s hip, heat rising invisibly beneath his fingerprints. 

He exhales. ‘I don’t forget.’ 

He waits, patiently, watching his index finger carving tiny circles into the smooth canvas of Sherlock’s back. Eventually he sees, almost hears, Sherlock open his eyes, and looks into the slants of them over the sharp jut of his shoulder.

Anything John might have said is rendered unnecessary by the look he receives: a profound undone glance, surrender behind the dark tunnels of Sherlock's eyes in the midnight, flecked not with fear but rather with assertion. _I see you; you see me._ It washes over John, this closeness, until he's wrapped and held not by arms but the unnameable _something_ in Sherlock’s eyes. John feels it being seared to his memory beneath the single word, _love_ , a word he hadn’t known so completely before, with anyone. John tilts forward, his fingers now pressing gently behind Sherlock’s ear and jaw to tip him into a kiss, hoping it says the million-and-one things he can’t say. 

Eventually Sherlock retrieves his arm from under the pillow (and John), draping it instead across John’s chest, a welcome weight of skin across skin. John smiles quietly and lets his head rest on the edge of Sherlock’s pillow. His knees come up to brush Sherlock’s knees and Sherlock’s toes tickle his toes and he breathes out, and closes his eyes, and sleeps. 

In the morning, he remembers.

**Author's Note:**

> Not really sure where this came from or what purpose it serves but, well, it basically wrote itself so I had to let it. I subscribe to so many better authors -- go read them and get this, but better.
> 
> All comments appreciated (truly!). xxx


End file.
